


what a long fall from grace

by polarkai



Series: between the shadow and the soul [1]
Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: F/F, Heavy Angst, Moral Ambiguity, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarkai/pseuds/polarkai
Summary: You are twelve years old and your parents are dodgers, and you don’t know if you’ll ever have a home again.― Scylla, through the years.
Relationships: Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn
Series: between the shadow and the soul [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748275
Comments: 17
Kudos: 104





	what a long fall from grace

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I binged the entirety of Motherland: Fort Salem in a day and after watching the latest episode, I felt compelled to write a fic exploring Scylla's background.

does this darkness have a name? how did it find us?

did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it?

when did we lose our way? consumed by the shadows, 

swallowed whole by the darkness.

― lucas scott, one tree hill.

* * *

You are twelve years old and your parents are crying. 

Well, it’s your mother, more so. Your father stands stoically with his arms around her trembling form, expression stony, and he won’t stop staring at you. He rubs at your mother’s back, whispering things in her ear that you can’t hear, rough and ragged. 

“Scylla,” he calls, and you rise slowly from your spot in the corner of the room, terrified. You’ve never been this afraid, even when you thought you were going to get a beating from your teacher for misbehaving in class. “Come here.” 

Your mother turns in his arms, and she’s grabbing you and dragging you over before you can even take a step, embracing you tightly. Her mouth presses into your hair, and you can feel drops of hot tears hit your shoulder. “Honey, we have to leave,” she whispers, voice quivering. “Your father and I— we’ll all have to leave.” 

You pull back. _Leave?_ You can’t leave; it’s a Tuesday, and you have class tomorrow. Your mother knows this. “What?” 

“We have to leave this place,” your father repeats, like you hadn't just heard it from your mom, like saying it again will make any difference. “We’ve been drafted, Scyl.” 

_Drafted._

It’s not an unfamiliar concept to you. You’ve already learned about the Accords from your parents, and you got a higher score than anybody else in class on a history test about it. You knew this day might come, when your parents would be chosen by the Army. 

You just never thought it would come so soon. 

But their words don’t make sense — they’re not “ _you’re staying with your aunt,”_ or “ _we’re starting basic training soon.”_ They're _“we have to leave this place_ ,” and your heart sinks into your stomach. 

You’re not an idiot. You know what that means. You’ve heard kids talk about it at school, like when your friend Josef and his family disappeared one day in late September. The rumors had started almost immediately, whispers among your classmates that they were dodgers, that they were caught just days later, hanged and their bodies burned. 

“We’re not going to come back?” you ask, even though you already know the answer. 

“No, we’re not.” 

You have friends here. You have a life here, and the prospect of never coming back makes you feel sick. “But we can’t _leave_ ,” you argue, and your mother starts crying all over again. You’re panicked, voice getting higher as you wave your arms aimlessly, the whispers of your classmates echoing around in your head. “It’s illegal!” 

_I heard his parents were burned at the stake after they tried to escape the draft._

_No, you heard it wrong. They were hanged,_ then _burned. No one’s burned at the stake anymore, Nikolas._

“We have no choice,” your father argues, growing angrier than you’ve ever seen him before. “We’re doing this for you, can you not see that?” 

“But we can’t just—“ 

“We‘re _going_ , Scylla!” Your father’s yelling now, his hand slamming against the wall, and your mouth snaps shut with an audible click, hit tears springing to your eyes. He softens then, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m sorry,” he sighs, rubbing at his face. “I’m sorry, Scyl. We’re leaving at dawn.”

You’re allowed to pack only things that you can carry on your back, and it’s not a lot. You find yourself grabbing a book from your shelf and shoving them down into your bag before packing three pairs of clothes and the small bear your mother had gotten you for your birthday so many years ago.

“You don’t speak to anyone about what we’re doing,” your father warns you the next morning before you leave, his voice gruff and eyes serious. “Nobody, do you understand?” 

You nod. You weren’t going to tell anyone anyways, but you don’t bother correcting him. “Yes, Dad, I understand.” 

The early November air is crisp as you step outside your house, birds singing above, the sun just barely peeking out of a cluster of clouds. The neighborhood is calm and quiet, those around you carrying on with their day as normal, and your father squeezes your shoulder as you walk down the driveway for the last time.

You are twelve years old and your parents are dodgers, and you don’t know if you’ll ever have a home again.

* * *

You are fourteen years old and you can’t remember the last time you stayed in one place for more than three months.

You’ve been on the run for so long now that you’re starting to forget what it felt like to be home. After a year and a half of this, you’ve become accustomed to living in tents and cabins hidden away from the rest of society, of strolling through shops with your head down and your face covered, of making friends that last only a few weeks before your family packs up and moves once again.

It’s in a hot and humid August afternoon that you meet _others_ for the first time. Families like yours, dodging the draft because they’re dodging death. You meet children like you, who have been dragged along on this difficult, terrifying journey by their parents with no say in it, starved and afraid and exhausted, just like you.

And you meet Porter, a lanky blonde boy with blue eyes who asks you, “Where’d you get that?”

You glance down at the book in your lap, the cover cracked and pages flimsy from years of rereading it. It’s one of your favorites, and one of the only two you’d brought with you from when you first left. “I brought it with me from home,” you tell him, folding the edge of the page and setting it down beside you. 

He takes a seat on the other side of you, picking idly at the grass. “What is it?”

“The Velveteen Rabbit,” you answer, blushing slightly out of embarrassment, and it seems to be warranted, because Porter huffs out a confused laugh as he runs his fingers over the cover. 

“Like, the children’s book?” he asks, only making you blush harder, the back of your neck on fire. “Seriously?” 

“Shut up,” you snap, rolling your eyes. “It was my favorite as a kid. My mom used to read it to me before bed every night.” 

Porter clicks his tongue, leaning back. “Can I hear some?”

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye. “You just made fun of me for it,” you remind him, but he holds his hands up, chuckling lightly.

“Sorry for that,” he insists, “It’s nice. I want to hear some. What’s your favorite part?” 

That’s an easy question to answer. You flip to the part with ease, the page number engraved in your head. It’s always been the part that’s stuck with you ever since your mother first read it to you at six years old, the part where the Skin Horse tells the Rabbit what it means to be _real._

“Read it to me?” Porter suggests, but you raise an eyebrow, scoffing. 

“What, you can’t read yourself?” 

Porter just rolls his eyes, tilting his head a bit. “I can,” he answers slowly, then leans forward so his face is closer with yours, his smile crooked. “But I want to hear you read it. Is that okay?” 

You purse your lips, fingers tracing the lines. “Fine,” you agree, “But no more making fun of me, or else I’ll punch you in the nose.” 

Porter laughs. “Duly noted.” 

At first, your voice quivers as you begin to read. You clear your throat once, and then twice, before trailing your fingertips beneath the lines as you read from them. 

> _"Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.”_
> 
> _“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit._
> 
> _“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”_
> 
> _“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”_
> 
> _“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”_

As soon as you finish, you shut the book and breathe in deeply, nervous to look over at Porter, who’s sitting so quietly you could almost pretend he isn’t here at all. Then, breaking the silence, “It’s silly, I know.” 

Porter shakes his head. “Not silly,” he insists, reaching over and touching your arm. His fingertips are rough, calloused, and your eyebrows furrow. “I liked it.” 

“Yeah?” 

He nods, completely genuine. “Yeah.” 

Over the next few months, you and Porter grow closer, closer than you are with any of the other dodger kids in the small group. It becomes a Thing, where the two of you hang out by the lake and read, telling stories from before you both left home. Sometimes you sing him your favorite song as he hums the tune under his breath, and you think something special could happen between you. 

The first time he kisses you, it’s waist-deep in the lake water and the sun is setting behind you, his big hands cradling your face, your arms settling around his torso, and things are _good._

But then—

You’re sitting with him in a field across the restaurant your parents are eating at, laying on your stomachs and cracking jokes, teasing each other until your ribs ache from laughing too hard. It’s a beautiful day, one of the nicest of the season, and it’s one of the rare occasions your family travels into the city, if only for a brief trip to get dinner. 

And it’s there, in the field, where you spot a soldier standing a ways away, arms behind her back and chin held high, medals glinting in the light and her stature stiff, poised. 

You take in the way people stop for her, bowing their heads in greeting, saluting her, even, looking practically giddy when she smiles and nods at each of them as they pass by. People stop and _stare_ , like they’ve never seen a better sight than this. 

“I don’t get it,” you admit quietly, watching a little girl approach the uniform clad woman, a big and sloppy, albeit shy, grin spreading across her face. The soldier crouches down with a warm smile of her own, letting the little girl reach out and touch the medals clipped above her left breast. “Why do people praise them?” 

Porter shrugs, taking a long sip of his water bottle. “They fight for our country. They protect us, you know?” He glances over to where the adults sit, silently eating their dinner just outside the restaurant. “Sometimes I wish my parents hadn’t become dodgers. They’d be heroes instead.” 

You’ve heard many, many things from your father about the Army, and none of them are good. Nothing like Porter is describing. “But they’re _corrupt_ ” you echo some of his words, leaning back on your elbows. “Witches only fight for them because they didn’t want to be killed by them. We shouldn’t have to do that.” 

“Don’t say that,” he hisses, grabbing at your arm with a harshness he’s never used with you before. “You’re starting to sound like…” 

You tense up, eyes narrowing to look at him as he falters, cheeks tinted red. “Like what?” you snap, already moving to stand up. “Like the Spree?” 

He gapes at you, mouth opening and closing like a fish, eyes apologetic. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just— I hate it when you talk like that.”

“It’s what my father says,” you defend yourself, arms crossed over your chest. You suddenly feel ashamed, for some reason, like you’ve done something wrong. But your father has made it clear to you that the Army is not good, and you’re not about to change your views for a boy just as blind as the rest of them. 

Porter frowns, looking down at his hands, and you impulsively find yourself asking, “Are you going to join?” 

His head snaps up at that. “What?” 

“Are you going to join?” you repeat, sharper this time. “The Army, are you going to join them when you’re old enough?”

He hesitates, and that’s the only answer you need. “You’ll die out there, Porter,” you insist. “They don’t care about us, you’d—”

“I’d be a hero!” he argues, fumbling to stand up and rise to her level. She reels back from the way he towers over her suddenly, face beet-red. “Not like my dodger parents. I’d be protecting our country! Why are you saying these things?” 

You swallow thickly. This has been an argument between you too many times now. “I’m going back to the restaurant,” you tell him. “Don’t follow me.” 

“Trust me, I won’t,” he spits, crossing his own arms over his chest as his frown deepens. Underneath the veil of anger, though, you can see a hint of sadness and a little bit of something else hidden deep below. Fear, maybe, or worry. You don’t care. You leave him there, raging and sulking in the field, his words stuck to your skin like leeches. 

You’ve heard stories of the Spree, and you know their need to free witches from the military’s grasp requires the decimation of innocent civilians, no matter the cost. Their posters litter the streets, overtaking even the Army’s own propaganda, _**THE WAY OVER IS UNDER**_ in big, bold letters. _**THE WAY OUT IS IN.**_

But you’re not like the Spree. You’re not a terrorist, and you don’t think you could never kill anyone who didn’t deserve it, like they do. You’re a good person, like your mother’s always told you.

You’re a _good_ person.

“Porter’s just been influenced,” your father tells you later, when he recognizes the look on your face as he comes to bid you goodnight. “He doesn’t realize the innocent people affected by the war. He doesn’t understand the cost.” 

“He’s going to join,” you say, biting your lip. A thought has been rolling around in your head for hours since your argument with Porter, and you can’t stop wondering. “Dad— what if _I_ get drafted?” 

“You were born to be a fighter, Scylla,” he tells you, his lips pressing against your forehead, the scruff of his beard scratchy against your skin. “But not for a cause like that.” 

You nod. “I know.”

* * *

You are sixteen years old when you first catch a woman staring at you from across the plaza as you’re eating lunch.

It’s unsettling, to say the least. You shift awkwardly under her intense gaze, trying and failing to ignore the way she’s seemed to catch you in an invisible trap with her eyes. Next to you, your father rises slowly from his chair, dragging you up alongside him with a hand underneath your armpit. 

It’s then that the woman starts to move, approaching you with a determined look in her eyes. “The way over is under!” she shouts, like she’s desperate for the words to reach you. “The way out is in!” 

“Time to go, Scylla,” your father says, leading you away from the plaza and back towards the home you’ve settled into just this week.

When you look back, the woman is gone. 

* * *

You are seventeen years old and the thought of death terrifies you more than you’d like to admit. 

The irony is palpable, really— you have the ability to channel the dead, to read their minds and speak with them if you so desire, but the concept of death itself sends shivers down your spine. It makes you wonder if you’ll ever truly be able to embrace the power you hold.

The first time you witness it firsthand, it’s while you’re picking apples from the tree in the front yard, piling them up in the basket your mother had given you. A cat comes sprinting through an opening in the trees, startling you enough to where the basket slips from your grip and the apples tumble out, thumping to the ground.

It’s clearly hurt, you can see the trail of blood coating the grass beneath its paws as it comes to an abrupt stop next to you, mewling and shrieking in pain, it’s back leg torn nearly to shreds.

Your heart pounding violently in your chest, you crouch down slowly and reach a hand out, fingertips brushing against the bumps of it’s spine through matted, bloody fur. It’s in that moment that a hand comes down onto your shoulder, and gentle, nimble fingers tells you it’s your mother. 

She rests her chin against the top of your head. “Poor thing,” she says, and you duck out from under her chin to look at her with a frown as it's pained mewls die down, 

“Can we do anything?” you ask, even though you know the answer, clear as day by the amount of blood the cat’s left in its wake, by the way it’s breaths come out harsh and jagged.

“We’re not healers, Scylla,” she reminds you, and your heart sinks down deep into your stomach. “There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

Your frown deepens. The cat, writhing on the ground, slowly stops moving.

“Watch me,” your mother says, her hands hovering over the cat’s lifeless body. She stares down at it, muttering incantations you’ve never heard before, and then the cat’s body is enveloped with a warm glow, static in the air. A lilac stem rises from its torso first, growing and curling upwards. Then the cap forms, blooming from the stem and rising like dough, spreading out until it’s a perfect mushroom cap. 

“Death isn’t permanent,” your mother explains softly, as another stem grows, and then another, forming a triad of death caps all sprung from the corpse. “It _can_ become life again. We can make it something beautiful. You just have to know how to utilize it.” 

There is a thought lingering in the back of your mind, desperate to break through, to make itself known. It terrifies you, the images that flash through your head as you think about it, of blood and gore and being alone. The reality is, your family was never meant to run for this long.

“If they catch you, they’ll kill you, won’t they?” 

Your mother stills. Thinks for a moment, seems to contemplate whether she should lie to you or not. Either way, you know what the truth is. “Yes,“ she finally confirms, breathing out a heavy sigh. “They will.” 

Hot tears spring to your eyes, the backs of your eyelids burning. Two arms wrap around you, pulling you close, and you bury your face in the crook of her neck as she runs her fingers through your hair. 

“But that won’t happen,” she tells you, eyes serious. “We won’t leave you, Scylla.”

But you know promises like that were always meant to be broken. 

Two months later, you awake late one night to the thumping of boots and the low hum of a seed. Beneath you, the ground trembles, and at the very edge of the darkness, screams echo high and piercing— 

But more than anything, there is just _pain._ It burrows into your flesh and seeps into your bones, forcing you down until you’re on your knees, and you can’t focus on anything but the ringing in your ears and the way your head feels ready to explode. 

_Scylla._ It’s your name, called out into the darkness, your father’s voice tinged with fear. _Scylla, you have to go!_

Your brain struggles to process this. _Go?_ Go where? You can hardly even stand up, let alone run away, and the pain is so bad you think you might be dying already. 

But the pain is no match to the unbearable _burning_ that comes next. 

The fire is lit up in a blaze bigger than you’ve ever seen, flames licking the ground and making their way towards you just before you’re able to scramble back in panic, enveloping your foot first and then climbing up your leg, white-hot and enough to send you hurtling into the dark, empty abyss of unconsciousness. 

When you wake up, your parents are dead and there is an elderly woman crouched over you, her hands encased around your leg as she mumbles incantations under her breath, her eyes closed. The scorched flesh of your leg peels away to reveal soft, healed skin underneath, and the burning pain subsides until you feel nothing but a dull ache in its place. 

“I’m sorry, child,” the woman murmurs to you, guilt heavy in her voice. “I’m sorry for what they’ve done.” 

You glance over her shoulder. Behind her, there is nothing but ash and bone, and the sight sends you tumbling back into the darkness before you can stop it. 

When you wake up the second time, the woman is gone, and you are completely alone. 

The following months pass you by like the world is in slow motion, but the fires still dance in your dreams because your mind insists that you’re not allowed to forget. Twirling, leaping and licking tongues of red, orange and yellow. Everything is scorched black in its wake, and the body of your parents are left charred and burnt away. You can almost _touch_ it, reaching out to the embracing heat and its curling black smoke that slips through your fingers. 

When you startle awake, it’s to a dark room and a cold sweat coating your skin, the smell of charred flesh still lingering in the air. It’s enough to send you stumbling towards the bathroom, nausea overcoming you as you lean against the sink to splash cold water on your face, gasping for breath. 

When you look up, it is not your reflection that you see in the mirror, but a blue balloon staring back. 

_The only way over is under_. _The way out is in._

You are seventeen years old and the Army has murdered your parents, and you think you understand what your father meant when he said you were born to be a fighter. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed the first part of this series! I live for comments and kudos :)


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